Chapter 11 Bane #2
The girl fawned over me as she told me, “I’m so excited to be here. My father was so happy you invited me.” She and her father must have been measuring their importance by proximity to male attention from my family.
God, this is who Bianca complained about wanting to talk to?
Angela leaned closer to me and kept talking while Bianca’s father stood up with a frown on his face as an ashen Krawson was shoved in by my security.
The man stumbled like he had no pride and then he walked hunched over to his uncle with puppy eyes.
He held his bandaged hand cradled close to his chest as he whimpered, “Uncle Stef, they mutilated me.”
Stefano’s gaze sliced my way, but I didn’t care to stand or give an explanation. So, I lifted a brow, waiting to see if his uncle would go to war for him.
His jaw ticked once but that was all the gray-haired man showed in irritation toward me. Instead, he turned his wrath on his insignificant nephew. “Sit down and stop whining, Kraw. You’re embarrassing the family.”
“Embarrassing?” Krawson almost cried, but he took a seat on the other side of Mr. Zarelli and hung his head like a shamed pet dog would.
“Sorry for his antics. Should we discuss over some food? We’re starving from—”
“We eat when your daughter arrives,” I told him.
“Oh, we don’t have to wait for her. She’s always late.” He chuckled like leaving his daughter out was par for the course.
“We wait for the women in our family always,” I replied, my voice leaving no room for argument. I glanced at Rafe to see if he would corroborate. It was his fiancée we were waiting for after all.
Yet, he didn’t so much as look up from his work phone.
Not until a few seconds later when a throat cleared from the doorway and Pepe walked Bianca in.
She wasn’t in her usual attire. I’d come to glance at each villain she’d pick for the day. Yet, this evening she’d opted for a light dress with a row of buttons climbing her torso, woven from fabric that whispered old money. Modest, demure, with a skirt that flared soft at her knees.
She looked fucking devastating.
She scanned the room before her gaze landed on each of the faces, and I saw her emotion as she recognized every single one of them.
Joy came from seeing Ezra and Jameson. I saw how she tried to look happy to see her mother and father.
I think she tried to muster some sort of respect, but it was barely there.
She was learning, it seemed. And then there was a nervous acknowledgment and feeling I couldn’t place between Rafe and her.
Like she had unearthed secrets with him.
It was the look I hated most. I wanted to dissect it and tear it apart until I understood it completely, but it wasn’t mine to understand.
And then her gaze found me.
It wasn’t joy. It wasn’t comfort. It was hate. Pure, simmering, and sharp enough to flay skin.
I told myself she wasn’t mine to care about. She wasn’t mine to protect, to understand, to want. She was a debt, a pawn, a woman I found myself watching over for a bargain rather than anything more.
Still, when she walked past me and chose the empty seat between Rafe and Jameson, my chest tightened. Rafe to her left, silent and disinterested. Jameson to her right, already leaning toward her with that sly grin.
Fuck. Of all the seats in the room, she picked the one that made my blood boil.
The server circled the table with quiet precision, setting down plates heavy with food and baskets of steaming bread. Mr. Zarelli lifted his glass, cleared his throat, and smirked.
“Now that we’re all here,” he said, glancing pointedly at Bianca and then at one of my waiters, “perhaps my daughter will learn punctuality has a cost. Just give her bread.”
Laughter rippled from Krawson, the fucker, but Bianca stiffened in her chair.
Her mouth thinned out like she was trying to hold back a retort and her hand hovered near the basket that was held out to her, trembling for just a moment.
But she covered it up by smiling and murmuring that she was happy to see her father. Everyone took her act at face value.
Everyone except me.
I watched as she met his eyes and took a big roll from the basket. He seemed to narrow his like there was a silent war happening.
My gaze flicked to Bianca’s hand, the slight tremor in her fingers. I didn’t know what caused it, didn’t care if it was nerves or something else, but I knew she didn’t want the bread.
“She’ll eat steak,” I told the server flatly. “Salad. Now. No bread.”
The whole table froze.
Her father’s smile curdled. “She’ll eat what her father tells her to.”
I leaned back, voice low and final. “Interesting that you gave your daughter to us but think you can still control her. Bianca, what do you want to eat?”
Bianca’s eyes darted to me, wide, startled.
Not grateful—never grateful—but surprised I’d given her a choice probably.
I had to be better about acknowledging her.
I couldn’t live with her thinking she wasn’t going to be noticed for five fucking years when all I did all day was notice her.
“Are we all that concerned with my plate of food over your own?”
She tilted her head at me, and I couldn’t help but respect her sass even under pressure.
“Fair. Choose what you want.” I waved the waiters on and allowed them to set bread, pasta, and steaks in front of us as I changed the subject. “Let’s discuss some ports, shall we?”
Stefano glanced quickly at Kraw. It was the only sign I needed.
The man just couldn’t learn his lesson the first time.
He’d already given up his daughter for trying to be slick.
And now he knew exactly what his nephew was doing.
Still, I let him fumble over it. He cleared his throat for a speech about shipments and ports that needed “attention,” about alliances “requiring flexibility.” I let him talk until he believed he’d wormed his way out of the betrayal he’d allowed.
Then I cut him off with a sentence: “Pier Forty-Seven is closed to your business.”
He blinked. “You don’t control—”
“I do,” I said. “My family and my alliances run every West and East Coast port that means anything to you. Am I right, Jameson?”
Jameson knew as well as I did that the East Coast had ties to cartels and the Italians. The Diamond Syndicate they both belonged to didn’t possess a stronghold there like we did. He shrugged. “He’s right, Stefano.”
“What about you solidifying ties there with—”
Mr. Zarelli was going to mention Jameson’s wife, but that woman had betrayed him, had run off with the cartels and was most likely dead now. Jameson’s temperament suddenly lost all his charm.
There was the monster he hid under it all. “Consider your next words carefully, Stefano. I don’t care whether you're in my syndicate or not if you start discussing my family.”
Mr. Zarelli had started to sweat as he glanced around the table and realized not one of us was on his side. “Rafe,” he started, but my brother pressed a button on his phone and finally met Mr. Zarelli’s eyes as he said into the call, “Take Zarelli off the ports.” And then he got up and walked away.
Bianca’s father barely contained his emotions at hearing that. His face turned a bright red and then I saw the whites of his knuckles as he gripped his fork. His wife made quick work of trying to diffuse his temper by pointing to the flowers on the table, “What a beautiful bouquet, right, Bianca?”
“I do agree with that.” Jameson turned his attention to the bouquet, took out his phone and snapped a picture. “My daughter loves flowers.”
“You have a little girl?” Bianca asked, a frown on her face. I wasn’t sure if it was disbelief or trepidation.
“Yeah, want to see a picture?” Jameson turned his phone toward her and her expression softened.
“She looks happy with you.”
“I try. Trying to make it a life for a child rather than a life within the syndicate, if you know what I mean.”
Bianca gave him a small smile and patted his shoulder. “If you’re trying, you’re already halfway there.”
Jealousy burned through me like a fuse. She offered him a cordial pat when all I’d gotten for months was cold stares and clipped words. He had her attention—her softness—and it made me want to reach across the table and rip his arm off.
I didn’t want her. I couldn’t. But I didn’t want anyone else to have her attention either.
They continued to talk to one another, but Stefano talked over them to me. He wanted to talk ports, access, shipments. He wanted this, wanted that, wanted the conversation focused on how it could benefit him.
“Do you think this is the best time to discuss anymore?” I finally cut him off. “You’re on thin ice already with no other daughter to trade for another fuck up of yours. So, might be time to give that daughter the time of day considering you haven’t seen her in months.”
Kraw rolled his eyes and whined about his hand. “None of this is the best time. I need a damn hospital.”
“Did you say hi to Bianca?”
“What for? She’s a part of your family, now isn’t she?”
Yet, her father wanted some last scrap of control, and the only place he found it was in claiming fatherhood. “She’s still my daughter.” He slammed his hand down on the table. “Eat your damn bread,” he barked at her.
Bianca flinched at the command, eyes flashing toward me as if, even though we’d barely talked in months and I’d been cold to her, she wanted to warn me to not to react. She reached out for a roll, small hand trembling, and took two mechanical bites. “Happy, Father?”
“The whole thing,” he snapped.
Jameson’s chair creaked as he leaned forward, irritation creeping into his tone. “You kidding me?”
“No,” Krawson muttered from his seat. “That’s real parenting, Jameson. Or wouldn’t you know, because you’re spoiling that—”